Big Sisters with Big Problems
by Curlscat
Summary: For Ember53608's contest. Basil knows what his sisters do in their free time. He maybe doesn't get everything, but he definitely knows enough to be included. Even if he doesn't know who this "Jack" guy is, or why Sabrina and Daphne hate him so much. Disclaimer: I have characterized Basil but that's kind of it.


**AN~**

 **In case you were wondering, I'm more than a little bit in love with the dynamic between Sabrina and Basil. Sabrina just needs someone who looks up to her as a flawed person who is still a hero, and I think Basil is the perfect person to do that.**

* * *

"Who wouldn't be angry? You ate all my cereal and faked your death for three years!" Sabrina's voice, raised in anger, drew Basil into the kitchen. The five-year-old was used to Sabrina being angry, and he knew she could take care of herself, but she might need help sometime, and he loved his big sister, so he always wanted to be around in case she needed someone to fight for her.

"Technically I didn't fake my death," someone said, a man that Basil had never heard before. "I just let everyone assume I was dead."

Basil was treated to the sight of Sabrina crossing her arms over her chest and leaning all her weight on one hip, a sure sign that she thought whoever she was talking to was a stupidhead. Basil recognized this from behind, without seeing her face (her eyebrows would be low, not squished together all angry-like but working their way there, and she'd have her mouth smooshed into a little line) because he'd seen her point that look at people a lot, especially Puck.

"Semantics," Sabrina said.

"Semantics win court cases all the time, though," the man said, tapping a piece of paper on the table, and Basil got his first good look at him.

He looked a little like Puck, with messy hair the same color, and a nose that Basil could see the nostrils of from across the room. His eyes were blue, but they still reminded Basil of Puck- like something was going to happen that would make Sabrina mad any second. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a pile of empty cereal boxes on one side of him, an empty jug of milk on the other, and a bowl, spoon, and a bunch of papers right in front of him.

Basil tugged at Sabrina's shirt. She jumped a little and turned to look at him, and he motioned her down.

When she'd bent down, he went up on tiptoe and asked, "What's 'semantics'?"

"It's when you pick at the details about something even though the basic meaning is the same," Sabrina explained. "Like Jack did."

So the man's name was Jack. Okay.

"But I'm back now!" Jack said. "And weren't we excellent friends, before?"

Sabrina went right back into you-are-going-to-hurt-very-soon mode and said, "How did you even find my apartment?"

"You're the great detective, you figure it out."

Sabrina's mouth pressed even tighter together, and she took a deep breath through her nose before she said, "You're so lucky my parents aren't home right now."

Jack laughed and said, "Henry? I can take him."

"Mom's scarier than dad," Basil said, climbing up onto the chair across from Jack. "I don't think you could take mom."

"Baze, don't encourage him," Sabrina said, tugging on his shoulder.

"Why?" Basil asked, looking up at his big sister. "I bet you can beat him up, too. You're as good as dad. Maybe better. 'N I'd help."

Jack snorted. Basil and Sabrina both glared at him.

"What?" Jack asked. "She's like, four feet tall!"

Basil was pretty sure Jack was wrong. He was almost four feet tall, and Sabrina was way taller than he was.

Sabrina ruffled Basil's hair and said, "Thanks, kid." She glared at Jack. "Get out of my kitchen."

"Not your kitchen," Jack said. "It's your parents'."

"Get out of my _city_ ," Sabrina said, her voice getting scarier. "Heck, get out of my _state_. Get off the planet. I never want to see your face again."

Jack made a noise that sounded like clicks but Basil had recently learned was spelled like 'tsk tsk tsk,' which made no sense to him. "Didn't your parents teach you manners?" he asked.

"Out," Sabrina said.

A clomping in the hallway heralded the arrival of Daphne, finally awake. "What's-" she started, then her tone changed to angry. "Jack."

"How come you know him?" Basil asked, finally tired of this. His family knew people that he didn't a lot, but they usually told him about them fairly early on. He could only be so patient.

Sabrina and Daphne shared a look over Basil's head. He didn't have to see it to recognize that it was the 'you-deal-with-him no-you-do-it I-did-it-last-time you're-better-at-it' look. He didn't like it very much, but he wanted answers, and this meant one of them would give them to him. Eventually.

"C'mon, Basil," Daphne said, tugging on his arm. "I'll tell you about it in the living room."

Basil gave his sister a look that showed he was in no way fooled by this obvious attempt to get him out of the way, but he hopped down from the chair anyway and followed Daphne out of the kitchen.

Daphne explained what had happened with Jack (something about giants and almost killing Basil's sisters and getting taken up into the sky), but Basil had a hard time listening because of the sounds of a very loudly whispered fight going on in the next room. He couldn't tell what anyone was saying, but Sabrina had definitely wanted Daphne to take him away so she could say whatever she wanted to Jack. It wasn't fair. He just wanted to help Sabrina and she kept hiding the ugly stuff from him, like he would love her less because of it.

When she was done, and Basil had a general idea of why, exactly, Jack was a bad guy, instead of just taking his sisters' word for it, they headed back for the kitchen, where Sabrina seemed to be mostly done arguing with Jack, though he was still sitting at the kitchen table.

"Can I yell at him now?" Daphne asked, glaring at Jack. This was weird. Daphne didn't usually get really mad at people like this, she mostly let Sabrina do that for her.

"No," Sabrina said. She didn't sound happy about it. "Tell her what you told me, Jack. And get right to the point."

"I may have... accidentally set the giants loose. On the whole world. Possibly. One or two of them."

Sabrina cleared her throat. Jack looked at her, and looked away really fast. Sabrina's glare was scary, so Basil didn't blame him. He didn't say anything, though. Basil would be talking by now. Sabrina was almost as scary as Mom when she was mad.

"In return for getting him out alive, Jack promised to let a group of renegade giants out into the human world," Sabrina said tightly. "And because they were smart enough to realize he's a sleazeball, they used magic to make sure he'd keep his word."

Jack made a face and tugged at a necklace he was wearing, a thick gold thing that Basil hadn't paid much attention to because it reminded him of the kind of thing Uncle Jake wore all the time.

"How many?" Daphne asked.

Jack mumbled something, and Basil took the opportunity to ask Sabrina what "sleazeball" and "renegade" meant. Her definition of "sleazeball" was interrupted by Daphne screaming, "Two _hundred_?"

Sabrina's head snapped around and she said, "You told me fifty!"

"Well, I did let fifty out, technically," Jack said easily.

Daphne groaned and let her head fall to the table. Sabrina just glared. Basil climbed up onto a chair again and looked at the jug of milk. There was a little bit left, though not enough for him to have any.

"Sabrina?" he said. "Can we go shopping?"

* * *

Two hours and many groceries later, Basil was happily engaged with his midafternoon cereal snack while Sabrina and Daphne tried not to kill Jack.

"We shouldn't do it!" Daphne declared. "We're just enabling him!"

Basil didn't have to ask what _enabling_ meant. They were all going to therapy together and he'd already learned that.

Sabrina let out a tired sigh, the one that meant she was really tired of whatever was going on and wasn't going to spend any more energy fighting about it, or with it. Basil heard that one a lot when she was dealing with Puck. "We can't let innocent people get hurt because Jack's an awful human being."

"We have to get two hundred rogue giants back into a country we have no access to without letting any humans see them," Daphne pointed out.

"If I promise to let you beat him up after we get everything together will you help me look for the forgetful dust?"

"You know I don't condone beating people up."

"Just 'cause I'm better at it than you."

"Physical violence is the refuge of those who are not capable of attacking in any other way," Daphne said loftily. She said this a lot, so Basil knew what everything meant. He also knew that it was a pile of poop, because Daphne would hit people if she had to.

Sabrina rolled her eyes at Daphne's words and said, "I say we just let Mom and Dad take care of it."

"You know they hate it when we do that."

"Well Jack's not gonna be any help, and one of us has to stay with Basil. You really wanna be the one to take that many giants alone?"

"I can come!" Basil piped up, glaring at his sisters. It hadn't occurred to him until this moment that they might leave him behind. "I can help! Puck taught me how to punch!"

Sabrina and Daphne gave each other the 'who wants to deal with him this time?' look again, and then Sabrina sighed and said, "Baze, kiddo. You've never dealt with a giant before."

"Daphne took down one when she was just a little older than me."

"One. And I shouldn't have let her. This is a lot."

"I'll stay out of the way," Basil said, giving his sister big sad eyes. "Please?"

"Fine," Sabrina said with another sigh.

Daphne glared at her sister with wide eyes.

"I'll take care of him," Sabrina promised, wrapping an arm around Basil's shoulder and shaking him a bit. When Daphne still didn't look convinced, she smiled a little and said, "I got you through everything alive, right?"

"See?" Basil said, sticking his tongue out at Daphne. "Sabrina always keeps me safe."

"Someday she might mess up, though," Daphne said, biting her lip.

Basil shook his head. "Not Sabrina. She's too good at being a big sister."

* * *

Four hours later, Basil proved his point. They'd gotten several of the giants back home and now had the help of the good giants (the ones who liked their cloud home and didn't want to leave) to get the rest of them back. Basil was staying in the clouds, out of the way like Sabrina had made him promise to be ("You can stay, kid, but I swear if you get stepped on I'm never buying you ice cream again"), when one particularly heavy giant footstep shook him straight through a hole in the clouds.

Sabrina, about two hundred feet away, using a combination of the magic carpet and the throwing stars Snow had given her for Christmas to herd bad giants to captivity, screamed his name nearly as soon as he fell, which was funny, 'cause he hadn't even noticed he was screaming himself.

"Daphne! Catch him!" she'd added, her voice louder than it should have been over the wind in Basil's ears, and getting louder.

Daphne was on the ground underneath him, using magic to catch giants, both hands full and busy. Basil could see her clearly, getting bigger really fast.

And then there was a soft "thump" and Basil found himself falling much slower, and then slower still and- he was on the carpet with Sabrina.

"Told you you'd keep me safe," he said, once he could sit up again.

Sabrina laughed and said, "Yeah, well, you could help, short stuff. Stop falling off things."

"Kay," Basil agreed, grabbing the carpet and lying flat on it.

* * *

They got all the giants back where they belonged, but they were late for dinner. Basil was kinda mad about that 'cause Dad was making breakfast-for-dinner, which was his favorite. And Mom and Dad were mad about it too because they didn't like it when Sabrina and Daphne did stuff like fighting giants without telling them (especially when they took Basil).

Basil didn't tell them he almost died. They'd get mad at Sabrina if he did, and it wasn't her fault and he was fine.

Cold pancakes were almost as good as warm pancakes, though, and Sabrina and Daphne looked kind-of-crazy-happy, the way they usually did when they got in a fight with a monster and won, and Mom and Dad couldn't be too mad when everyone was okay and they hadn't missed anything important. Plus as soon as Daphne said "Jack," Dad looked like he knew exactly what they were talking about.

"Where is Jack, by the way?" Dad asked, once they were done telling the story.

"He's right-" Sabrina started, turning around. She stopped. Groaned.

"Are you effing _kidding_ me?" Daphne shrieked, balling her hands into fists.

"That mother-" Sabrina said, then stopped again.

Daphne and Sabrina traded unhappy looks, and Daphne said, "Guess what we're doing tomorrow?"

"Can I come?" Basil asked.

Sabrina and Daphne just turned to look at him.


End file.
